A monetary union among autonomous countries cannot simultaneously maintain an independent monetary policy, national fiscal sovereignty and a no-bailout clause. These three features make up an impossible trinity, and attempts to preserve all three concurrently will ultimately end in failure. In...

The further development of the European Community that has been decided at the Maastricht summit will be impossible to realize without a significant increase in the EC budget and an adjustment to the financing system. What will be the additional financing requirement? How could the Community's...

In June 1988 the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission concluded an “Interinstitutional Agreement on Budgetary Discipline and Improvement of the Budgetary Procedure”. A key element of the agreement is a commitment to medium-term financial planning for the Community for the...

The EC's budgetary problems are coming to a head. For 1983 virtually all the Community's resources have been utilized, and there are growing fears that the Community will soon have to declare itself bankrupt unless changes are made to current policy. What should be done to secure the financing...

A number of tools have been suggested for solving the European sovereign debt crisis, in particular the options of leveraging the EFSF/ESM, introducing Eurobonds and a European Troubled Asset Relief Programme (Euro-TARP). However, it is unclear how these instruments will work, given jittery...